But this could all change soon. Pocket-Lint is reporting that HTC and Beats Audio are mulling a music streaming platform of their own to take on Spotify, Rhapsody et al, which would give you access to millions of tracks and enjoy the support of Beats Audio’s enhanced sound profiles.

The unnamed, unconfirmed service is thought to be spearheaded by Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope-Geffen who is heavily involved with Beats By Dr. Dre and apparently, isn’t a fan of Spotify. Giga.OM quotes Iovine talking to Business Week, saying: “We have very big ambitions for Beats beyond headphones… Music has got to succeed on the phone or else the record industry will never thrive.”

And then there were four

HTC launching a music streaming service would mirror a move made by Sony last year, which launched its Music Unlimited service for Android, which is coming soon to iOS devices. Sony’s Music Unlimited costs £9.99 a month for a subscription that gives you unlimited streaming on your phone, as does Spotify. Last year also saw the launch of Deezer, a similar service offering unlimited streaming for a tenner a month. HTC’s music streaming platform (htc.fm?) would need to offer something special in order to stand out in an increasingly crowded space.

Beats Audio support for third-party apps already mooted

One of the things we weren’t too happy about regarding Beats on the XE and XL was that you could only activate the enhanced sound profile when you were playing music through the default HTC Music app. But if you were streaming your Spotify playlists or browsing channels on Last.fm, well, tough luck, no Beats Audio enhanced sound for you.

In a recent leak of the HTC Sense 4.0 UI and features, we heard that Beats Audio support for third party audio services like Spotify would be rolled out. If true, this would mean that HTC’s music platform would need to offer something else than Beats Audio-accented sound profiles in order to stand out. Either that, or it starts a price war – unlimited streaming for £5 a month? We could go for that…

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